Page 58 of An Invocation of Monsters

It was mostly because the woods were dark and deep, and my laughter sounded out of place here in the dead of the night.

“Toth?” I whispered aloud. “Please tell me that was a sign, and that I’m not just out here wandering on my own.”

I used my phone flashlight sparingly, not wanting to drive him off with the light. It was a huge sign of trust on my part to go wandering into the woods in the dark, towards a village where apparently everyone had up and left without a trace a few hundred years ago, and I hoped Toth would take it as such.

I felt the soft brush on my arm again, and aimed the phone light. The moth had returned, his antennae waggling.

“Toth?”

There was silence until I reached the outskirts of Deepwater. Then a massive shadow descended from overhead, landing on the ground as lightly as a feather.

I shut off my phone light with relief, my heart hammering. “You could’ve said something instead of trying to give me a heart attack.”

For some reason I was thinking of bones, pale in the darkness. Antlers and horns.

But Toth’s red, glowing eyes told me where he was standing, and the shimmer of his ever-shifting wings stood out even in the darkness.

“You were with them.” He cocked his head, a silent question.

“Yes, I sort of have to be if I want to put this all together.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket, crossing my arms over my chest. “But go ahead, check my trail. See if anyone is hiding in the woods behind me.”

Toth stared at me levelly, the glow of his eyes dimming. I sighed.

“I’m not trying to sell you out to them, or the Hunter,” I said. “I wanted to… to talk to you. I came to see you. I thought the little moth was a sign that maybe you wanted to talk to me, too.”

He said nothing.

Oddly, my throat felt tight. Were my feelings hurt?

By a monster?

It was a little ludicrous to feel so… rejected.

Finally I turned around, but before I could take a step, the moth-like monster spoke.

“I apologize, Elle,” he said, and the sound of my name in his voice sent a thrill through me. “Trust is in short supply when the forest is a battleground.”

I glanced back at him, not wanting to get my hopes up fully.

“I would very much like to talk to you,” he said, extending a hand.

I felt the muscles in my body relax, the tightness easing, a smile pushing through. “That’s more like it.”

Then I stepped forward, and without thinking twice, put my hand in his.

My skin glowed against his in the light of his eyes. My fingers looked so tiny and frail next to his clawed digits; their sharp points just pricked my skin when he closed his hand around mine.

“Will you join me in the Void?” he asked.

I smiled up at him, marveling at the velveteen texture of his skin. “Of course I will.”

“This is a way the others cannot reach, but I can bring you there.” He drew me in closer, releasing my hand to wrap his arm around my waist, the other behind my thighs to lift me up.

I encircled his neck with my arms, all too aware that the Mothman was going to carry me like a bridegroom into another world. All the tourists in Point Pleasant would be so jealous.

“I will not drop you,” he whispered to me, his wings spreading wide.

It wasn’t until twenty seconds later that I made the sudden discovery that I was bone-deep terrified of heights.

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